Former MPD officer indicted on rape charge

MEMPHIS, TN (WMC-TV) - Officers from the Raines Station police precinct responded to a shooting Tuesday night outside a gas station at South Third and Brooks.

It's the same intersection where one of their former colleagues is now accused of sexually assaulting a victim behind a building last October.

"It's the world in which we live and it's Memphis, neither of which surprises me these days," Memphian Cedric Jackson said.

Jackson is just one Memphian frustrated by news of another arrest involving an officer.

"It happens so frequent that our officers are not what I think our officers should be - upstanding," said Memphian Katherine Perryman.

Former officer John Smith, 48, was indicted by a state grand jury Thursday for rape and another charge called "official oppression."

Details are still developing, but it appears the alleged crime occurred while Smith was on duty.

We do know that he was assigned to the Raines Station precinct at the time and was later moved to the South Main Station.

Smith resigned from the police department in the weeks before Thursday's indictment.

"It is disturbing any time a law enforcement officer breaks the law," said District Attorney Bill Gibbons in a statement. "It is especially troubling when a law enforcement officer uses his or her power to detain someone for the purpose of committing a crime. We cannot tolerate such conduct."